


Dying's a Tactic

by Annariel



Series: The Adventures of Purple Cat [7]
Category: Urban Dead
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The DHPD's Bravo Squad get sent to Fort Creedy to recover some abandoned tech for the military.  However the Duke D'Oeuvre and his Hunting Club are on their tail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gabcd86 (livejournal)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gabcd86+%28livejournal%29).



> Thanks to fififolle (livejournal) for beta-reading.

"Right! Bravo! Listen Up!"

I had been cleaning my gun when Gabby came into the room and I only half glanced up at him. Gabby tended to announce things in a `dynamic' and `authoritative' fashion. Most of us had taken to waiting for the follow up before we jumped to attention. It wasn't that he was a bad squad leader so much as that Bravo squad was an insubordinate bunch of misfits. Gabby was the youngest member of the squad, which didn't help his authority. He was tall and thin with untidy brown hair that wasn't cut as often as it might be. His main interests, outside surviving the zombie apocalypse, were rock guitar and Marxism. The squad liked him though. We might have been insubordinate and difficult but I don't think we'd have wanted anyone else in charge.

"Bravo!" It was more a whine than a command.

"We're listening," said Pedro, one of the three Australians in the squad.

The Aussies were all as mad as each other, though in different ways. Jim Extreme was fond of explosions. He was a solid block of muscle which he kept toned through regular work outs. He had a strange tendency to refer to himself in the third person, particularly when he had, or was about to, blow something up. We'd all learned to treat it as a warning sign. Pedro had a similar devil-may-care gleam in his eyes, but was more interested in absurdly difficult free running techniques than in explosions and fire-power per se. He was wiry where Jim was solid but there was no doubt that both were strong and fast. Doctor Sy, on the other hand, was weird in a creepy mad scientist kind of a way. He was a former Necrotech employee and he never seemed to have quite shaken the mind-set. He dressed neatly with smoothed-back brown hair and a way of looking at you that made you feel like an experimental subject. On the whole he kept himself to himself, but he was our resident expert on zombies and we valued his knowledge if not always his sarcasm.

"Right! Cool!" Gabby looked around at us. "We're going to Fort Creedy."

That made us all look up. Fort Creedy was part of the former US army base that had sprawled across eastern Malton. It was a solid lump of concrete with a tiny entrance which formed a natural defensive structure, until the zombies broke in that was. Once the zombies were inside the fort, it proved so difficult to dispose of the bodies that the defence had crumbled, defeated by the sheer number of dead bodies inside its walls.

"Why?" asked Hali. 

Haliphax was our resident tech head. He could fix not just generators, radios and phones but, on the odd occasion we'd found a working computer, he'd usually managed to get it up and running and connected to the internet, giving us a sudden glimpse of the world beyond Malton's high walls. He was a tall man, genuinely skinny in contrast to Pedro's muscles. He had long darting fingers and a penchant for balaclavas. He was American, a computer technician who had been working for Necrotech when the quarantine had trapped us all inside the city.

"Brass want us to fetch... a thing," said Gabby.

I frowned. "A thing?"

Gabby shrugged. "A box thing, apparently it was in a safe. I've got a serial number we can check."

"What's in the box?" Hali leaned forwards, looking interested.

"Fuck knows. Brass don't know anyway. Apparently it's locked up tight."

Now Sy butted in. "It seems eccentric, even for Brass, to send us to collect a box when they don't know what's inside."

"The British military have contacted them. _They_ want the box. We want supplies of food and ammo. Once we've got the box we take it to Ostrehan Towers and a helicopter will meet us and make the exchange."

There was a moment's silence.

"Fuck the military," Pedro said succinctly. "They've trapped us in here with a fucking five metre wall around the town and now they want us to play errand boy for them?"

"Ammo. Food. Supplies," said Gabby, suddenly looking a lot older and more serious than he usually did.

"We need those supplies," said Steve suddenly. He was leaning against the back wall of the room, cleaning his gun. Steve had actually been a cop before the quarantine, though he didn't usually make a lot of the fact. But he was slightly older than most of the rest of the squad and had somehow managed to maintain a reasonable girth through five years of quarantine and running battles with the undead. "We could use a break from scavenging supply dumps. It would give us a chance to regroup and consolidate."

"That's what Goldy said," offered Gabby, referring to the chief of the DHPD.

Hali grinned. "We can always take a peek in the box."

"It's got an electronic..." Gabby tailed away, stared at the gleam in Hali's eye and then shrugged. "Just don't tell me what you're planning, OK?"

That leaves me, I suppose. I'm Cat. I'm older, shorter and less nimble than the rest of them. Some say I joined the DHPD because I got bored of being a zombie and that may even be true. It's a life, of sorts, with a bunch of people I'd almost count as friends and there really isn't much else to do in Malton these days. I have bad dreams, but they are not all about the taste of human brains. Being dead is a little like being asleep, but I woke up and it felt like I'd been asleep for a long time before our localised apocalypse started. I get by, I suppose, and I'm tolerated.

* * *

We left the following morning. We decided not to bother with free running across the rooftops and risk the streets. We were a large group and there didn't seem to be many zombies in the area.

It was mid-winter and the winter had, so far, been a hard one. It looked like the weather wasn't going to let up. Snow had fallen overnight blanketing the ground with soft white.

"This is where we find out if anyone's shoes leak," said Hali.

"Everyone's shoes leak. When did you last get a new pair?" I grumbled.

"Went to Caiger Mall last month. Place was crawling with zombies but I found a couple of undamaged supply crates."

I craned my neck back to scowl at his grinning face. I thought I saw a flicker of movement up on top of one of the buildings behind him and I squinted through the dull winter sunshine.

"What is it?" asked Hali.

"Thought I saw someone."

"There must be plenty of survivors around, keeping out of sight."

Hali looked backwards too but really all there was to be seen was our footprints where we had walked down the street. He sighed.

"If someone wants to shadow us, they'll just follow the footprint trail. There's no way we can be inconspicuous right now."

* * *

We slept that night in an anonymous suburban house with boards nailed across the ground floor windows. Gabby worked us into shifts and the rest slept on the bare floor in one of the upstairs rooms, our sleeping bags crammed close together for warmth.

"Winter in Malton fucking sucks!" complained Pedro.

"Just be glad you're not somewhere land-locked in the middle of the continent," murmured Hali as we all dropped off to sleep. He had been born in Missouri. At least Malton was mostly just damp in the winter. The snow was rare.

I woke up in the middle of the night into immediate alertness. I lay still, trying to analyse my surroundings in the dark, straining to detect what had woken me. It was then I saw the silhouette at the window, framed against the winter moon. It was a man in a tailored suit with a bowler hat, umbrella grasped in one hand. A shiver went down my spine. I'd never met him but the reputation of the Duke D'Oeuvre preceded him and if he was here then that meant there was a hunt on and it wasn't impossible that we were the prey.


	2. Chapter 2

No one in Malton slept without a weapon close to hand. I pulled the pistol from under my pillow and started firing, but the bowler-hatted figure was already gone. I heard scrabbling sounds as if something was scrambling up onto the roof.

"What the fuck!" shouted someone. I stumbled to the window, entangled in my sleeping bag, trying to see outside.

"There was someone in here with us!" I shouted.

"Who was supposed to be on guard?" Gabby's voice cut over the hubbub.

"Where's Steve?" asked Jim.

Steve was slumped at the top of the stairs. His throat had been slit. He hadn't even drawn his gun.

"Shit!" I muttered. 

"Have we any idea who that was, or why we were targetted?" asked Gabby.

"Duke D'Oeuvre," I said. "Judging by the bowler anyway."

Jim coughed and we all looked up at him. He was looking decidedly sheepish.

"What did you do, Jim?" asked Gabby.

"Well, it's possible Jim ran into some of the Hunting Club the other day."

"What? Lord Curton's Hunting Club?" asked Hali.

"Lord Curton's _Gentleman's_ Hunting Club," I corrected.

"Whatever, bunch of entitled toffs who think Malton is a return to the days of the big game hunt," Hali shrugged.

It wasn't a bad description. They hadn't ever made their way into Dunell Hills, but rumour of them had. They chose their targets with care, opting for the well-known and well-respected. They were affiliated with the Philosophe, another killer group who backed up murder with arguments centred around knowledge and ignorance. The noble elite and the intellectual elite working together against the rest of us. Gabby would probably have found a Marxist moral in it somewhere.

"Jim, what did you say to the Hunting Club?" Gabby asked.

"Jim might have taken a couple of pot shots and told them the DHPD could take them any time. Only I did it with a fancy British accent."

"We were about to go on a critical mission and you challenged the Hunting Club to a fight?" said Gabby.

Jim shrugged. "Jim didn't know we were about to go on a secret mission."

"Well, nothing to be done about it now," muttered Pedro.

"Sy, cook up a syringe and revive Steve," ordered Gabby.

Sy gave a long-suffering huff and started pulling supplies from his rucksack. "This will slow us down," he complained. "Why did we bring a washed up and out of condition cop with us again?"

"Because he's in the squad!" said Gabby. "There wasn't an audition, you know."

Sy paused and looked up at Gabby. "I've nothing against him, but he's slow. He could stay behind and guard Bunter PD. He shouldn't be out on missions!"

I groaned. We'd had this argument before, or variations on it.

"Everyone is in a squad," said Pedro, joining in the fray, as usual.

"It's a stupid way to organise the department," returned Sy.

"It's the way it's done and Steve is in our squad so are you going to revive him or not!" demanded Pedro, stalking up into Sy's face.

"Why do you care anyway? You know he slows us down."

"Oi! You two!" shouted Gabby. They both stopped and looked at him. "Enough with the arguing. Steve's with us. Sy, make that syringe."

"I was just saying," began Sy.

"I don't care. Argue with Brass when we get back. For the time being we're in a squad and Steve stays with us."

"I'm just pointing out he's going to be a drain on resources," grumbled Sy as he set up the small camp stove he was going to need to mix the ingredients.

Gabby ignored him and came to stand next to me in the window, frowning out at the darkness beyond.

"Very authoritative," I whispered quietly.

"Fuck me if it didn't work too. I should try pulling rank more often."

I slapped him gently on the arm. "Don't get cocky. We can always ask for a different squad leader."

"Yeah, but will Brass give you one when there's someone as badass as me around?"

An hour or so later the syringe was ready. Most of us took the opportunity to get some more sleep but Sy had to keep watching the mixture. As a result he was both tired and even more bad tempered by the time he was done. He revived Steve with poor grace and we set off into the cold once more.

"What are we going to do about the Hunting Club?" I asked Gabby as we trudged on through the snow.

He shrugged. "Fuck knows. It's not like I can stop them following us." He gestured glumly at the trail of footprints we had left.

"We'll use up a lot of resources if they attack us, especially if the Duke brings back up."

"We'll just have to deal with it when it happens."

We spent the day on a long detour around Greater Ridleybank. We already had the Hunting Club on our tail. There didn't seem to be much point in adding a zombie horde into the mix. Steve complained about his boots while Sy glowered at him and complained about how tired he was.

It was mid-afternoon when we reached Peppardville and got our first sight of the fort. Big high concrete walls rose grey and forbidding out of the snow. It was pretty imposing.

"I'm amazed no one can hold that place," muttered Pedro, eyeing it up. 

"The problem is getting the bodies out once zombies break in, or so I've heard," said Gabby. 

We circled the outer walls cautiously. The sound of groaning hummed on the air from within which told us that zombies were in residence. The large gates were smashed and trampled to the ground. It was possible to see swaying bodies jammed tightly into the gatehouse.

"I don't fancy trying to get in that way," I murmured.

"No other way in. We can't free run to the tops of the walls," said Gabby. 

"That's where you're wrong," said Pedro and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes. "I've brought climbing gear."

The walls of Fort Creedy looked like sheer surfaces to me but apparently I was wrong. Pedro wedged himself into a corner where a buttress jutted out into the street and then, very slowly he began to edge his way up. A collection of small pitons were hammered into gaps in the mortar as he went higher and higher above our heads. 

"He'd better not fall off. We've already wasted one syringe this trip," said Sy.

"Do you have a better idea how we're going to get inside?" asked Gabby.

"Not at the moment. But I do think this whole thing's a wild goose chase."

"Hardly likely to be that. The military obviously want something," I pointed out.

"I don't like working for them. Since when is the DHPD part of the British Armed Forces?"

Steve snorted quietly. "I very much doubt the Armed Forces see us as part of the happy team."

"OK, I'm up!" Pedro shouted. 

A rope snaked down. We were all used to climbing. It was an essential survival skill in Malton, but people who could easily free climb up something like Fort Creedy's walls were still rare. It wasn't long before we had harnesses and a belay set up. In the cold air fingers were stiff and clumsy, but we'd had a lot of practice.

The top of the walls formed a wide concrete walkway. It felt windy and exposed on the top and we huddled together for warmth, hands thrust deep into the pockets of our worn out jackets. We could see the fort within laid out in front of us with its armoury, hospital and barracks. Gabby had a rough plan and the buildings were easy enough to identify.

"Don't seem to be too many zombies actually inside," muttered Gabby.

The abandoned parade ground was almost empty. The grass, once close-cropped, had grown into a meadow. There were a couple of lone shapes dotted around. Even weighed down with snow, the grass came up past their knees. The zombies swayed gently in the winter breeze.

"Perhaps the rest of the zombies are inside the buildings," I suggested.

"There were certainly lots in the gatehouse," observed Hali.

"I reckon each of these buildings can be barricaded individually. We should make a run for the one we need and clear it out," said Jim.

"We want the armoury," said Gabby.

We turned our attention to Gabby's map and then looked across at a large building standing on its own. Undisturbed snow lay around it for some distance. Forbidding windowless walls stared at us.

"If that has zeds inside, it's not going to be easy to clear," I remarked, imagining trying to drag the bodies out of the narrow entrance while under attack.

"A grenade would work," said Jim airily.

"Get them all down at once and give us more time to clear," mused Steve.

"Do we have grenades?" Gabby demanded, staring hard at Jim.

"Might do," was the reply.

"So we run across to the armoury and then toss a grenade through the door?" I asked.

"Someone should get up on the roof first, and set up a rope. We may need it for the getaway," said Pedro.

"You just like heights," observed Steve.

Gabby waved him to silence and turned to Pedro. "Can you get across there without attracting zombie attention?"

Pedro nodded. "On my own, I'll be a lot less conspicuous than all of us."

"Off you go then."

Pedro abseiled down the perimeter wall and slipped across the open ground to the armoury. He was right. None of the handful of zombies in the area noticed his movement. Most were probably asleep. We watched Pedro repeat his spiderman trick until he waved to us from the top of the armoury.

As a large group we attracted attention crossing the open space. Heads slowly turned in our direction.

"Don't fire unless you have to," whispered Gabby. "It'll wake the sleeping ones up."

"We do know," muttered Hali.

Zombies were already shambling curiously in our direction by the time we arrived at the door of the armoury.

"Better do this quickly or we won't be able to get barricades up," murmured Gabby.

"No sooner said than done!" Jim lobbed a grenade through the doorway. There was a low rumbling explosion within. 

The next fifteen minutes were chaos. We desperately tried to clear out the armoury before the mob of zombies that was rapidly assembling got into the building. I constructed a makeshift barricade from anything to hand, mostly the remains of previous barricades. I left an opening at the top so the rest of the squad could throw bodies over it, but that meant that the scrambling fingers of the undead could easily find purchase to pull the barrier away.

"How long do we have to stay here?" I shouted. There was a limit to the amount of construction work I could do.

"That should be the last of them," remarked Pedro, chucking a final body over a plank. "Seal us in."

"There's only the one entrance you know? If I seal it up too tight we won't be able to get out."

"I don't think it'll stay sealed for long," observed Sy.

I could only agree and hammered a last couple of planks in place. At least with the entrance fully blocked it would take the zombies longer to break in. I looked around. The rest of the squad had vanished into the interior of the building, searching for our mysterious box.

"Strong room is empty! Wrecked, in fact!" Hali's voice echoed gloomily through the darkness.

"Fuck! It must be here somewhere!" said Gabby.

"Why would it be? Some survivor will have found it long ago." That was Sy.

"The army have some GPS tracker thing. They said it's still here," replied Gabby.

"Do we have the GPS tracker thing?" asked Hali. "Would be handy about now."

"What do you fucking think?" growled Gabby.

"Be fair, Gabs, you could have had it and forgotten about it," pointed out Jim.

"I don't have it. We'll just have to search through the wreckage."

I glanced at the barricade in front of me. It was starting to bow inwards and the wood was splintering.

"Barricade won't hold!" I shouted.

"Fuck! This room's full of bodies!" shouted Steve somewhere off to my left. "Who was supposed to clear out down here?"

The low sound of groans echoed from within the building. Gabby and the others came piling out of various rooms and corridors.

"Tactical retreat?" I asked.

"Exactly what I was about to say. Only less with the tactical and more with fuck! Run!" grinned Gabby.

I sighed and began to pull the upper planks away from the entrance. Pedro squeezed through the gap and began swarming up the ropes that he'd left hanging down the side of the building with Jim and Hali on his heels.

"You next, Cat!" Gabby cupped his hands together indicating he wanted to boost me up through the hole.

"No time for chivalry! I'll slow us up."

"No time for arguing either. Just do as your told for once, woman!"

He pushed me up the barricade and towards the rope. I opened my mouth to argue further but Hali waved his hands urgently at me from the top of the building. I scrambled through the narrow gap at the top of the barricade, uncomfortably aware of the grasping hands below me, grabbed the rope and began to scramble up the side of the building. I glanced down. Sy was below me and Steve was just hauling himself out from the barricade.

Jim grabbed hold of my arms as I reached the top and pulled me up onto the roof. I risked another look downwards. The barricade had gone and zombies were swarming into the building. Sy was hanging one handed from the rope, firing into the crowd below, trying to clear a space. There was the sudden boom of a shotgun and then Gabby's head appeared out of the throng. I saw his arm fling upwards and grab hold of the rope. Sy's clip ran out and he cursed, scrambling towards the roof. I saw Gabby pull himself upwards, his shoulders rising out of the press of the zombies and then he dropped back and the mob closed over the top of him.


	3. Chapter 3

"Harness attached. I'm going back down!" announced Pedro.

"You're mad!" I exclaimed, but he had already launched himself over the edge of the building and was sliding rapidly down the rope. He had a pistol in one hand and was firing as he went. At the last minute, mere feet above the zombie hordes he changed the angle of the rope in his brake hand and shuddered to a halt. He locked the rope, switched a new clip into his pistol and drew a second from his thigh holster. He continued firing into the horde.

Suddenly Gabby reappeared, as the zombies thinned. He was dragging himself hand over hand up the rope. His legs dangled uselessly behind him. 

"Haul him up!" Pedro shouted as soon as Gabby was clear. Jim and Hali immediately grabbed hold of the rope and began to lift it. Gabby stopped climbing and hung on with his hands, blood dripping into the horde below him.

"Jesus, what a mess," muttered Hali as we hauled Gabby up onto the roof.

Sy and I had already laid out the contents of our First Aid Kits. I forced some anti-virals into Gabby while Sy cut loose his jeans and began bandaging up what was left of his legs.

"Fuck! My Levi's" Gabby muttered before screaming suddenly as Sy tied the first bandage and then, thankfully, passing out.

"Small mercies," said Steve.

Gabby's arms and torso were mostly unharmed, but his legs had been bitten and clawed at. Whole chunks had been taken out of them and he had almost certainly lost a lot of blood. He wasn't going to be walking for several days. Night was drawing in and none of us wanted to be trapped on the armoury rooftop when darkness fell.

"Throw him to the zombies and revive him tomorrow?" suggested Pedro.

Sy shook his head. "Let's not waste syringes. We're a long way from Dunell Hills. We might not be able to get more."

We looked gloomily over the parapet and down at the throng below us.

"That was a waste of time and bandages," said Sy.

"Reconnaissance?" I suggested.

"All we established was that the box is not in the strong room; that the rest of armoury was full of rubbish and zombies; and that we could spend hours searching and not find the box, if it's there at all."

"We're going to need to find some way to distract those zombies down below and buy ourselves time to get out," mused Jim.

"He's right. We need to move out now," said Pedro.

Zombies don't climb but they don't object to being climbed upon, at least not by other zombies. The writhing mass of corpses was piling itself up against the walls of the armoury, like a steady sea of arms rising towards us.

Jim produced another grenade. 

Pedro looked at it. "Can you clear a space? Hali and I will rappel down the side of the building and make a break for the boundary wall holding the ends of the ropes. We climb the far wall and then we turn the ropes into a bridge."

"Why me?" asked Hali.

"Because you're fast and we've a lot of running to do."

Jim was already poised on the side of the building, holding the grenade ready. Hali frantically strapped himself into a harness. Once he and Pedro were perched on the edge of the parapet, Pedro nodded at Jim. Jim dropped the grenade and Pedro and Hali launched themselves off the building as soon as the blast was over. 

"We'll need Gabby in a harness," observed Sy. 

"We'll all need to be in harnesses!" I objected.

"We don't have enough."

"I'll go hand over hand with a third rope tied to me. Then the rest of you can ropewalk," said Jim.

"Except for Gabby," I pointed out.

"I am here, you know," said Gabby faintly.

"Our glorious leader has come round. What now?" asked Sy.

"Like Jim says. Him first. Me in a harness everyone else ropewalking. Fucking legs."

We manhandled Gabby into the remaining harness amid a lot of cursing and complaining. A loud whistle drew our attention to Pedro and Hali, pulling their ropes taut from the boundary wall. 

Jim tied the third rope round his waist and then set off hand over hand.

"You got a loaded gun, Cat?" asked Sy.

"Yes, why?"

"You and Steve are going to need to buy us time."

Sy nodded to the far side of the roof. Fingers were scrabbling at the concrete ledge. I rushed over and stamped on them, dodging the decaying hands that grabbed at my ankles.

"Right, Gabby, I'm going to pull you along," I heard Sy say.

I glanced over my shoulder to see he'd hooked himself onto one of the three ropes and attached Gabby's harness to another.

"I can pull, my arms are fine." Gabby grinned but he was looking pale and shakey. Shock was no doubt setting in.

"OK, you pull with your arms and I'll drag. Now let's go."

They set off. Sy walking along the central rope and holding onto the ones either side. Gabby was swinging along behind him in the harness.

I leaned over the edge of the building and fired two shells into the top zombie. It fell backwards towards the ground with a satisfying thud. Steve had two pistols out and began systematically emptying them into the ones below. 

A loud whistle told us the rope walk was free. 

"It'll carry two. We should go together," said Steve.

"And if the zombies bite through the rope?"

"Sy can complain about wasting two more needles. Come on!"

Steve went first, gripping tightly onto the rope and shuffling along slowly despite the fact he was clipped on. I made use of his slow progress to practice target shooting with my pistol. I ran out of ammo by the time we were halfway across and the zombies reached the edge of the bridge. I watched them shamble onto it and fall to the ground below, but it wouldn't be too long before one of them attempted to bite the ropes. 

"Steve, get a move on!" I urged.

"I get vertigo!"

"I don't care. I'm frightened of zombies."

Steve managed a chuckle and began to move a little faster. I gazed anxiously back at the zombies on the roof. Then the first of the ropes fell away. Steve wobbled as he let go of it. We were about a metre short of the wall.

"Hurry up!" shouted Hali.

"I am!" Steve shouted back. 

He struggled forwards and I saw Jim and Hali grab him. Then the rope beneath my feet gave way. I squeaked and found myself hanging onto the last rope with my hands. 

"Keep calm, Cat! You're still clipped on!"

"That's not going to help when this rope comes down."

"You won't fall far. You just have to manage not to let go when you hit the wall."

"Oh God!"

"You'll be fine. Just hold tight!"

And then I was falling and the boundary wall was rushing towards me. The others were already pulling on the rope. I turned my face away as I slammed into the concrete and felt a jarring impact all through my body. By some miracle I held on and then there were arms around me pulling me upwards.

* * *

"What a fucking waste," Gabby complained from where he was confined to a lone surviving bed in the Canning Motel.

"Dunno, kept us off the streets." Jim grinned wolfishly in the half-light of the hurricane lamp.

"You're mad," retorted Gabby. Jim just shrugged.

Just then there was a shout from the next room and the sound of a gun being fired.

I dashed out onto the long balcony that ran the length of the motel's upper storey. The steps down had long been demolished and the only way to get up here was with ropes. It wasn't zombie-proof, they could always climb upon each other, but it served. There was a sound above me. I looked up to see a man on the roof of the motel, and the flash of a bowler hat, silhouetted against the moon.

Jim fired a pistol, but the figure disappeared.

There was the sound of more shooting from inside the other room and I dashed in. Hali was sitting on the floor, nursing a bleeding shoulder while Steve leaned out of the far window, shooting at someone in the street below.

"That umbrella of his is a bloody rapier," Hali complained as I checked his injury.

Steve sighed and turned back into the room. "Lost him," he said.

"What's happening?" Gabby's plaintive voice floated in from next door.

"Another visit from the Duke, mate," said Jim.

"Anyone dead?"

"Nope, he skewered Hali but doesn't look like he hit anything vital."

"Now we've got two injured," grumbled Gabe.

There was a clatter of footsteps on the rooftop and Jim hurried out on the walkway again. However it was just Pedro and Sy, returned from reconnaissance.

"Looks like I missed all the fun," Pedro commented, glancing over at Hali.

"We're still being followed by fucking Duke D'Oeuvre," complained Steve.

Gabby sighed. "There's not a lot we can do about that. Let's worry about the fort."

"What can we do? The zombies will all be alert now," I pointed out. The thing about zombies was they tended to fall asleep. They would stand and sway gently in the middle of the street or a building and, as long as you were quiet and moved slowly, they would ignore you, mostly anyway. But once you'd woken them up it was a different story. They were hungry and alert and unlikely to fall back to sleep for a long while.

"Jim was thinking about that," said Jim, a dangerous gleam in his eye.

"Is there any point in my forbidding you to do whatever it is you are obviously planning to do?" asked Gabby.

"Not really, mate."

Gabby shrugged. "Go on then, spill."

"Well they're not that bright are they? Even bright zombies? So I reckon I make a lot of noise outside the fort and draw them out."

"How?" I asked.

"You know Jim. A little explosive here. Some yelling and shouting there. A lot of running around being visible."

"It'll never work! You can't draw them all out."

"I reckon I can get a lot of them out. Especially if I'm not trying to get away."

"You mean, like, deliberately let yourself get eaten?" asked Gabby.

Pedro laughed. "Jim you are certifiably crazy, man. But it might work. Particularly if there are two of you."

"You're volunteering to be lunch too?" asked Gabby.

"I reckon there will need to be several of us. We might even manage to trigger a feeding frenzy."

"OK. This is now officially creepy," said Steve.

"I'm not good for much except being zombie chow and I won't be much better in the morning," offered Gabe.

"I am not volunteering to be eaten! You are all infected by Jim's craziness," interrupted Hali.

"You can die too many times," I added. I'd seen the end result, crumbling empty corpses abandoned by whatever it was that held the body together. People argued how and why it happened, some thought it was the end result of dying too many times, the soul would lose contact with the body, I was inclined to agree.

"We don't know that," Jim shrugged. He was correct as well, there wasn't anyone in Malton conducting scientific studies.

"Fine! Hali, Cat, Steve and Sy will break into the fort. Jim, Pedro and I are the distraction squad. We'll rendezvous at that cemetery in Pitneybank just north of the fort," Gabby said decisively.


	4. Chapter 4

Hali, Steve, Sy and I found ourselves perched back on the surrounding wall of Fort Creedy as dawn broke the following day. Fresh snow had fallen overnight, carpetting the ground with a thick blanket of white and we shivered in the cold breeze. 

We didn't have a long wait. Several explosions went off at the gatehouse.

"Jim's enjoying himself, at any rate," observed Sy.

Then we saw Pedro dash into the fort. I squinted in the early morning sunlight. "Is he naked?"

Steve groaned. "What is it with Aussies? Can't one of them be at least a little bit sane?"

"I'm sane," said Sy. I exchanged glances with Hali and Steve. None of us said anything.

We watched as Pedro capered about the parade ground and then, as the zombies began to take notice, he dashed off once more towards the gatehouse.

"I'm just glad he was too far away to see the details, is all I can say," remarked Hali as Pedro vanished.

"I brought my binoculars!" I said suddenly. "I should have thought of that before."

Gradually more and more of the zombies started to lurch towards the entrance to the fort. When several loud groans broke out from the gatehouse, even more zombies headed in that direction. I turned the binoculars to the street outside in time to see Jim, Pedro and Gabby all splitting up and running in different directions. I put down the binoculars. Pedro was already out of sight but Gabby was limping badly. I had no desire to watch the horde catch up with him.

"Now or never, I reckon," remarked Hali.

I nodded and we dropped down a rope and headed across the ground towards the armoury once more. Hali was favouring his left arm slightly, but I'd taken a look at his shoulder wound earlier and it had already almost healed. There weren't many advantages to being infected by the zombie virus, but rapid healing was one of them.

The building was mostly empty. The horde, having broken in, had then presumably pursued us up to the top of the building and, from there, over to the wall of the compound, leaving the armoury itself deserted.

"Where did you guys look yesterday?" I asked.

"We checked the strong room pretty thoroughly. Then it all went tits up," reported Steve.

"So it's unlikely to be in the strong room, where next?" I peered around. The armoury was formed like a tunnel. It consisted of one long corridor and rooms off.

"Special Weapons, I reckon," said Hali. "I saw a sign on one of the rooms further in."

I gulped. I wasn't anxious to get even deeper into this concrete monstrosity and further away from the exit.

"Let's check there first then," I said bravely.

We crept down the corridor. Hali flashed his torch on the doors as we went past: `Firing Range', `Light weapons', `Ammunition', `Workshop'. The Special Weapons room was mostly empty. It consisted of one long workbench and cupboard down one side of the room. Some of the cupboard doors had been pulled off, or hung loosely on their hinges. Hali flashed his torch into the interior, working along until he came to the far end.

"Ah ha!" he said triumphantly.

"Have you found it?"

"I've found a safe. Do you have that combination number Gabby had?"

I'd written the sequence of numbers on my hand and reeled them off as Hali spun the dial left and right. There was a satisfying click. Hali pulled open the door and reached in. After a second or two he drew out a box. It was long and thin, maybe a foot or so from end to end. Lights winked from a touch pad on the front.

"Serial number?" I asked.

Hali flipped the box over and we checked the numbers etched on the underneath.

"OK, we've got it," I said with relief. "Let's get out of here."

Hali shook his head. "I want to try and open it first. Once we're back with the rest of the squad I won't be able to."

"What makes you think the three of us will let you?"

Hali offered me a lop-sided grin which exuded confidence. "You don't want a quick peek?" he asked.

Steve lounged against the door. "Might as well. Even if the zombies wake up and attack us we can shove it back in the safe. Now we know where it is, it won't be too hard to retrieve it properly."

"I agree. I want to know what the army has sent us to fetch," said Sy.

"We'll be wasting four syringes," I pointed out.

Sy waved a hand. "I'll be the judge of that."

I stared dubiously at the box. Hali was already wiring small bits of electronics up to it which he had pulled out of various pockets in his jacket.

"It'll take you hours to crack that thing."

"No, it won't. I've had a couple of days to put out feelers. I've got some codes!"

I stared at him aghast. "How did you manage to get American military codes!"

"Lots of disgruntled ex-military folk in Malton. It's just a matter of asking the right questions in the right places, or at least on the right radio frequencies."

"On the radio? So pretty much the whole of Malton know where we are, and how to get into the box!!"

"Yeah, but we got here first," replied Hali.

"How..." I persisted, but at that moment the box clicked open in his hands.

"What is it?" Steve moved closer from his place at the door.

It appeared to be a pair of armoured gloves. I reckoned they would reach up to someone's elbows if worn. LEDs winked along their lengths.

"Curiouser and curiouser," murmured Hali, lifting a glove out of the box.

"I suppose a manual would be too much to hope for," I observed.

Hali handed the glove to Steve, picked up the second and peered into the now empty box, feeling around the edges with his free hand. "Nope, no such luck."

"It's about my size, you know," said Steve, turning the glove he was holding over and peering into it.

"No don't!" Hali said, but it was too late.

Steve slipped his hand neatly into the glove. He flexed his fingers and lights blazed all along its length. Then he gasped suddenly.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It bit me, ow!" he retorted and tried to pull it off. "It won't come off."

"Let me look." Hali peered at the end of the glove, shining his torch past Steve's elbow.

"It looks like it's embedded itself into your arm," Hali observed.

"It what?" asked Steve.

"Embedded itself into your arm."

"Why?"

"Well how should I know? It's high grade experimental military tech, only a doofus would put it on."

"Gee thanks!"

"It'll be a good opportunity to study it though," remarked Sy, coming over.

"You would say that," grumbled Steve.

"What are we going to tell Gabby?" I asked anxiously.

"I think you had better tell him," said Steve. "I'll lurk inconspicuously in the background."

"Why me?"

"Why are either of you worried about Gabby? Your combined age is probably five times his," said Sy dispassionately, still staring carefully at the glove on Steve's arm. 

"I'm more worried about the fucking glove than about Gabe," added Hali.

"It's not doing anything," said Steve. "It could be harmless."

"Not doing anything? It's embedded itself in your arm. It's a military secret and it was made jointly with our friends from Necrotech. No way is it harmless!" Hali ran his hand over his head.

Steve shrugged.

"OK, time to get out. We can worry about the glove, and Gabby, once we're clear of the fort," I decided.

Hali sighed in resignation, shut the other glove in the case and slung it over his shoulder.

"I would like a look at the other one before we go," Sy started.

"No!" the rest of us said in unison.

He sighed exaggeratedly. "Anyone would think you had no faith in me."

"You can study the one on Steve's arm," said Hali.

"Oi! No way!" Steve backed away from Sy. "I'm not a guinea pig."

"I do rather think you've volunteered yourself," I pointed out.

"Were we leaving?" retorted Steve.

I saw Hali and Sy exchange glances. "It's probably best to look at them properly once we're out of here," said Hali. "Gabby is going to have to let us at them now," he jerked his head in Steve's direction.

Sy nodded. "Yes, Steve does appear to have done us both a favour."

I scowled at them both in the dim light of the torch. We walked out of the room into the corridor and stopped dead. A slowly shuffling wall of zombies was blocking our exit.


	5. Chapter 5

"They were quiet," murmured Hali.

I heaved my shotgun up to my shoulder. "Looks like we're going to be using those syringes after all."

"I can't hold my pistol with this glove on," grumbled Steve.

Hali pulled a couple of pistols out of holsters on his hips and started firing, advancing towards the zombies. The doctor and I kept pace with him, emptying the shots in our guns and then pausing to reload. We met the zombies close to the end of the corridor where it opened out into the entrance hallway. Our only hope was to fight our way through them and then safely out onto the parade ground.

It didn't look good. 

We hit the zombies at a fair speed. Hali had replaced the clips in his pistols and kept firing, dropping the zombies directly ahead of us. I used the shotgun to force back any that seemed to be closing in from the sides. Sy took rearguard with his own shotgun. Steve fell back on punching anything that got too close with the metal glove.

The zombies pressed in on us and we slowed. When Hali had to reload again, they surged forwards. Then sharp knife points suddenly popped out of Steve's fingers and he effectively beheaded the zombie in front of him.

"Woah!" he said.

Hali started firing, but Steve pushed him to one side. "I'll take the front, you help Cat with the flanks!"

Then he was sweeping forward. He swung his glove-covered arm in front of him in wide arcs, effectively carving a route through the zombies.

"Fascinating," murmured Sy in my ear.

"How sharp are those things?" I asked as Steve minced his way through flesh and bone.

"No idea! But they're damn effective."

We tumbled out of the armoury and set off at a fast jog across the parade ground. I risked a look over my shoulder. The zombies were shambling in our direction but not at any speed.

We went out of the main entrance. Whatever Jim and Pedro had done, it had certainly been effective in drawing the zombies out of the fort. We met a few along the way, but Steve made short work of them with his glove. 

We climbed up into the nearest building and then started out across the rooftops. The ruined terraces didn't necessarily offer us much protection but the rooftops made it less likely we would attract zombie interest or followers.

As I surveyed our surroundings I thought I caught the flash of sunlight on binoculars on one of the surrounding roofs, and possibly the silhouette of a bowler hat skylined against the clear winter blue.

* * *

We paused by the agreed revive point. Gabby was swaying mournfully under a lamp post. We retreated into one of the nearby houses to argue over who was going to do the revive. Sy wanted to look at Steve, or rather the glove, so I ended up with the task of cooking the syringe. Sy and Hali poked, prodded and bickered over Steve somewhere behind me while I mixed together the chemicals over our small camp stove. Outside, the short winter afternoon darkened into night.

"How did you extend those knives?" Hali asked.

"Don't know."

"Do you know how you retracted them again?"

"Nope."

Hali sighed. "I can't even find a control panel or anywhere I can access circuitry."

"We could always try surgery," said Sy, a note of enthusiasm in his voice.

"Oi!" objected Steve.

I left them to it and walked across the street and into the deep grass of the cemetery beyond.

"Mrh?" said Gabby dolefully, staring at me out of dead eyes.

It's possible I tutted, even as I slipped the syringe into the back of his neck and pushed home the plunger. He slumped to the ground. I checked the area but it was clear of zeds so I took the risk of waiting a moment or two in the chilly air to see if he was going to get up any time soon. After a bit I stirred his body with my foot.

"Owww!"

"You should quit lying on the ground. A zombie will find you. That's if you don't get hypothermia in this weather."

Gabby groaned. "You are a cruel and heartless woman."

"Now I know you are all right."

I hauled him to his feet.

"Least my leg's better now," he murmured. That was one of the benefits of death, you didn't exactly wake up good as new, but major injuries had always vanished.

I was suddenly aware of two figures approaching down the darkening street. I raised my gun, even though they looked more like the living than the dead. Malton is sufficiently lawless that it doesn't do to get careless. Before long the forms resolved themselves into the figures of Jim and Pedro.

"I don't believe you two survived!" I exclaimed as they approached.

"Jim didn't," said Jim dolefully. "Pedro had to rescue me."

Pedro just shrugged and grinned.

* * *

Gabby decided we should move that night. For once the rest of us didn't argue. We'd clearly stirred up enough of a hornets' nest that it made sense to vacate the suburb. The zombies from the fort were spilling out into the surrounding streets. By the time we'd eaten a hurried meal of cold baked beans, the makeshift barricade on the house was already beginning to give way.

It wasn't snowing but with the darkness came the cold and the rooftops froze into treacherous iciness. We slipped and slided dangerously as we made our way north and west.

"Maybe we could give the army just the second glove," Gabby suggested doubtfully, looking in the box. "We could say the other was never there."

"You think that will work?" I wondered.

"They might at least give us half the supplies. Half has to be better than none at all, right? And we get Steve all souped up which is good too."

"No offense," said Pedro, "but I'm not sure Steve with a fancy armoured glove is all that much of a gain."

Steve snorted but didn't rise to the bait. We were all thinking much the same. The glove was nice but it was a hand-to-hand weapon and there was a limit to how useful one of those would be even in a horde of zombies, let alone up against someone with a gun.

It was past midnight when we became aware that we were being shadowed as we progressed across the rooftops. There was only the moon to see by, which made it difficult to be sure, but we all heard noises of people landing on tiled roofs, or clattering across rickety walkways. Noises which we were not making ourselves. Our chatter quietly died away until we were all listening intently.

We'd taken a sweeping route north to keep us well clear of Ridleybank, in the hopes that any horde we'd stirred up in Peppardville wouldn't link up with the Ridleybank Resistance Front mega-horde. 

Gabby stopped us silently on the rooftop of a church. There was a small sheltered flat space, large enough for the whole squad to group together. He pulled out a small torch and shone it on his battered A-Z.

"Let's head for Stickling Mall," suggested Pedro quietly. "There should be plenty of space to lose ourselves and hopefully other survivors as well."

"Dunno. What if it's open?" asked Steve. "We'd be pretty vulnerable. We can't retake and hold a mall on our own, not in this condition."

"I've got a fair bit of ammunition left," said Sy, but he sounded doubtful.

"I don't," I said. I looked around. Hali shook his head.

"I have some, but I'm down to my last two grenades," said Jim.

"We'll be better off just splitting up and agreeing to meet up at the nearest cemetery to revive anyone who's been killed," I pointed out.

"Nah! I'd rather we stayed together. I don't want to lose track of the gloves nor have someone cut Steve's hand off," said Gabby.

"It'd grow back, might solve the problem," Sy eyed Steve's arm speculatively.

"Not quickly," I snapped.

It was at that moment that our opposition came over the rooftops and effectively put a stop to all further conversation. Gabby killed his torch which at least meant that everyone was equally in the dark. The moon had vanished behind a cloud so a pitch black blanket enveloped us. Once the light was gone the chill of the wind seemed even harsher. All around us were the sounds of movement.

I guessed there were at least a dozen attackers, all fast and all alive. I could hear guns going off, but in the dark it was hard to distinguish who was firing.

I slithered towards the edge of the building. There didn't appear to be much point in a pitched battle, and surviving to distribute revives seemed like a good plan. The freezing stone parapet burned at my hands, and I scrabbled uncertainly for footing on the outside of the building. There was a rusting drain pipe near me and I grabbed hold of the cold metal with rapidly numbing fingers. Then the clouds moved away briefly and the moon shone down upon the rooftop scene. Steve was standing in the centre of the roof, his glove hand raised in front of him like a shield. Someone fired and I saw a blur with movement, and a spark as the bullet impacted on the hard metal. Steve leaped forwards, thrust with the glove, and eviscerated one of the figures.

I glanced around the roof. I could see both Haliphax and Gabby's bodies but the rest of Bravo had vanished, clearly opting for flight as I had. Steve spun where he stood, impaling a woman who stood behind him and then sweeping backwards to take out another in front. I ducked down, clinging onto the drain pipe and listening carefully to the sounds of battle above me. I had a feeling Steve was going to win the encounter but didn't particularly want to get caught in the crossfire.

There was a sudden flurry of movement and a dark shape leaped nimbly down beside me. For the briefest of moments I found myself eye-to-eye with the Duke D'Oeuvre. There was a heavy shape strapped to his back which looked worryingly like the case that contained the second glove. His hand flashed and there was a blade hovering at my throat.


	6. Chapter 6

"Theft's a bit beneath you, isn't it?" I asked.

"I praise knowledge," he said.

My eyes flickered to his backpack. There was no way I was going to recover it from him, perched precariously, as I was, on the edge of a frozen church roof. I decided to risk an escape and threw myself upwards, back over the top of the parapet and into the fight raging above. My feet slipped on the icy surface and I fell down on the flat roof. The Duke didn't follow me.

Steve stood alone in the middle of the roof, breathing heavily. There were bodies all around him.

"This is unexpected," I said, striving for a light tone as I got gingerly to my feet.

Steve's shoulders drooped suddenly in the dark and he looked more like his normal self.

"Yes, definitely unexpected."

"We'd better toss them off the roof before they get up and try to eat us."

It didn't take us long to throw most of the bodies down into the street below. We left Gabby and Haliphax and, after a little discussion, the smallest of our assailants, though we tied him up.

"I recognise some of these people," I mused as we threw the final corpse over the side.

Steve nodded shortly. "Malton Globetrotters."

The Malton Globetrotters were the human wing of the Dead. Murderers for the most part, they achieved with guns what the zombies could only do with tooth and claw. What I couldn't work out was what they were doing with the Duke. The Hunting Club might have been just another bunch of survivors on a bloody rampage, but they were a classier act than the Globetrotters.

Gabby was the first of the remaining corpses to wake up. His zombified form stared at us dolefully and made a low sussurating mrhing sound. 

"I'm almost tempted to leave him like that," commented Steve. "At least he's not talking."

The zombie made a low indignant rumble.

I had three syringes ready and moved around behind Gabby to jab him in the back of the neck.

By the time we'd revived Hali and our captive, Jim, Pedro and Sy had returned. We all stood around the man, a weedy blonde in a hooded tracksuit.

Gabby took a deep breath. "Right, well, time for some questioning."

"What you going to do?" the man asked aggressively. "Threaten to kill me?"

We exchanged anxious glances. "Where's Ghost Squad when you need them?" Steve muttered.

"We don't need Ghost. We can do this," said Gabby but he looked a little green around the gills.

I glanced at Jim and realised he had dropped back and was sitting on a parapet.

"Jim?" I asked.

He shook his head firmly. "Not my style."

"Fuck!" Gabby muttered. "We're just going to have to take him with us until we can hook up with Ghost."

"Ah! Moral cowardice. Always a solution," said Sy dryly.

"This is ridiculous," said Pedro. He pulled out his gun and shot the man through one kneecap.

The man screamed and curled up around his damaged leg. I felt my breath catch in my throat.

"It's normal to ask questions first, before you start torturing someone," said Jim. His voice was a flat neutral.

"Yeah, right, well, where's the Duke taking the glove?" Gabby asked.

"Fuck off," muttered the man.

"I can shoot the other leg," said Pedro. I think he was trying to sound nonchalant. It didn't really work. He chambered a round noisily.

"We should definitely take him to BD. He's better at this than we are," I said.

"Yeah, but Sy's right. It's not really any better is it?" pointed out Gabby. "Worse even, at least BD has the guts to do this kind of thing himself."

"BD is a sick motherfucker," Jim agreed. "No offense. Cat, I know he's your brother and I know he's just doing what he thinks is necessary, but he was borderline psychotic before Bryn vanished and he's been worse since."

"You have a better idea?" asked Pedro. He was still holding the gun pointed at the man.

Jim sighed and stood up to walk over to where the rest of us were gathered around the captive. He stared down at him dispassionately.

"You're one of The Dead right, a Malton Globetrotter?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"I'll take that as a yes," said Jim. "Several of the others were Globetrotters as well."

"So?" I asked.

"So what are they doing hanging out with the Hunting Club?"

I blinked as Jim voiced my own doubts. "Surely they're just teaming up."

"Unlikely," said Jim. He gazed around at us. "Gabby at least should be up on this stuff, given he spent time in Delta Squad."

Gabby shrugged. "All murderers are the same as far as I'm concerned."

Jim rolled his eyes. "The Globetrotters are the assassination wing of a zombie group. They are essentially on the side of the zombies. The Hunting Club, on the other hand, are blood sports fanatics. They're also linked with the Philosophe Knights which means they are snobbish as well as violent. In fact they are snobbish about violence. If they are in on this then they are after information."

I shrugged. "The glove, so?"

"So what are the Dead getting out of it?"

"I don't know. What are the Dead getting out of it?"

Jim shrugged. "Hey! Don't look at Jim. I just know who's who among the local killers. I never claimed to be able to figure shit out."

I toed the man at our feet thoughtfully. "So the Hunting Club want information and the Dead want... well the Dead will want some kind of advantage."

"The glove itself," said Sy quietly.

"The Hunting Club could study the glove without actually having to risk wearing it," said Steve.

"If they're giving the glove to the Dead, they'll give it Brains Monroe," said Jim.

We all looked at him again. "Hey! I made use of the time I spent in Delta Squad, unlike Gabby here."

"I killed people," Gabby said defensively. He caught us looking at him. "Bad people," he amended. "I just didn't see the point in knowing much more about them than that they were, you know, bad people."

It must, I reasoned, be a fairly simple life as a teenage assassin in a zombie apocalypse.

"Last I heard the Dead were based out of West Becktown," remarked Pedro.

"Well, I guess we head there and start searching then," reasoned Steve.

"And this guy?" Pedro asked.

Gabby shrugged. "Get rid of him."

Pedro shot him through the head and we tossed him over the side of the roof to join his friends.

* * *

We didn't actually get far into West Becktown. We opted to set up a safehouse in Bentley Cinema but almost as soon as Pedro had slipped inside to scout the place, he came running out pursued by half a dozen zombies. Jim threw a rope down to him and he began to scale up the side of the building.

Moments later Brains Monroe himself exited the cinema. He was a burly man in a long military greatcoat. He grinned wolfishly up at us where we were gathered on the roof and then he jumped.

We all gasped in surprise as he landed on the rooftop next to us, crouched low with one hand steadying him. Then he straightened up and, with a scrape of metal, iron claws sprang out from his left hand. He bounded forward. The metal claws slashed round in a wide arc.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve intervened, his own glove clashing against Brains' sending sparks flying. Gabby instantly raised Slasher and shot the pair. There was a blur of movement. It looked like Brains deflected the bullets with his glove. The move gave Steve an opening. His own arm came in but Brains managed to block it at the last minute.

Jim and Pedro both launched themselves on Brains' back, grabbing hold of his arms. Jim was sent flying almost instantly, spinning across the roof until his body crashed into an old advertising hoarding. Pedro clung on.

I didn't want to hit Steve, who was probably our best chance of actually taking Brains down, so I hesitated, gun in hand. Haliphax obviously had more confidence in his own aim. But his first shot hit Pedro who screamed in pain but somehow managed to hang on to Brains. Brains' arm moved again, but this time Steve got in a punch, skewering the larger man somewhere in his midriff. Brains staggered a moment. Pedro fell away from his back and, as Steve stepped backwards hastily, Gabby emptied his gun, Slasher, into Brains' head.

"Is he dead?" asked Steve, breathing heavily.

Hali bent over the body, checking for a pulse. "Seems to be. Let's get this glove off him before he wakes up."

I hurried over to Pedro with a First Aid Kit, while the others gathered around Brains' body.

"D'you think we can, you know, cut his arm off?" Gabby asked.

"No need, looks like it will come off of its own accord," said Haliphax with some satisfaction. I heard a click and the faint hum of electronics.

"Well that's useful to know," Sy said.

I looked up at him and then across at Steve. It seemed we were all thinking the same thing. Mostly that death was a lot easier to recover from than amputation.

Steve took a step backwards. "Hey, guys, no killing me, OK?"

"Come on, mate," said Pedro. "We need to get that glove off you and it beats chopping your hand off any day."

Steve ran his free hand through his hair. "Our lives are just totally fucked, you know."

I glanced over the side of the building to where the zombies were milling around below. I could see dark figures climbing up drain pipes and on the roofs of nearby buildings.

"Maybe we should kill Steve later," I suggested. "We'll have company in a minute or two."

Gabby glanced quickly over the side and then gestured east. "OK, everybody out. Split up, meet back at Caiger Mall."

* * *

We split up. Haliphax vanished south, the recovered glove tucked under one arm. Jim and Pedro headed west into Dunell Hills, no doubt for the shits and giggles of picking up a few more pursuers as they got deeper into disputed territory. Gabby and I headed north east. I didn't see where Steve and Sy went, somewhere to the east I thought.

"Seriously," Gabby asked as we paused for breath in Darvall Heights. "Do you think this is a good idea?"

"What? Killing Steve to get the glove back?"

"No, not that, I mean handing over the gloves to the military."

I shrugged. "Do we have a choice?"

"Well, yes. It's not like they're going to send anyone in here to retrieve them. They'd have sent an extraction team in the first place if they really thought it was worth the risk."

"Presumably they know how to make them."

"Nope, otherwise they'd just make new ones, not get us to play fetch and carry for them. I reckon they're not quite sure what they are or what they do or whether they're worth the risk."

"So you think we should hang onto them?"

"Well I don't want the army mass producing massive great super-hero gloves, no."

"Will it matter if they do? The gloves are not that wonderful. It's not like they're ranged weapons, and we took down Brains easily enough."

Gabby snorted. "Not that easily, it pretty much took six of us, plus Steve all souped up with his own glove. Imagine what someone would be like wearing two of the things."

"I've been thinking about that as well," said a voice behind us. 

We both turned in surprise to see Haliphax climbing in through the window.

* * *

The difficult part was getting captured. I instantly drew the "we need a damsel in distress" short straw. Steve had the glove. We needed Hali's technical know how. Jim and Pedro were not going to make convincing damsels in anyone's imagination and Gabby was in charge. 

"What about Sy?" I asked in desperation.

Sy grinned urbanely from where he was seated in the corner of one of Caiger Mall's abandoned offices. "Sure, I'll play damsel in distress," he drawled, managing to sound positively evil as he did so.

"No way," said Gabby firmly. "You'd mess it up big time. You'd be all superior and sarcastic and no one would believe you hadn't meant to be captured. It's got to be Cat."

The argument went on for a long time since I had fairly strong feelings on the subject of falling into enemy hands. Strong feelings and not a few residual nightmares, but I didn't say that because who wants a reputation as a flake? Or more of a reputation than I already had.

So I ended up as the damsel in distress. The easiest way to get captured, it was agreed, was to wander into Caiger alone, hang around among the stalls and booths long enough to get noticed by a spy and then head south, again alone.

Jim caught up with me on the way down the stairs.

"Are you sure you're alright with this Cat?" he asked.

"Sure, why wouldn't I be?"

"I've talked to Gabby and Jayden. I know what happened in Ridleybank."

I could feel the cold sweat breaking out on my palms. "It's OK. I'll manage."

"We'll be right behind you, you know. There's no way you'll get left behind or abandoned."

I nodded, not really trusting myself to speak. "It is the best plan," I said eventually.

"What's the best plan?" Gabby came clattering down the stairs. 

I strained to see behind them. The last thing I wanted was the rest of the squad listening in on this conversation.

"Me getting captured," I said as firmly as I could.

"I was just checking she was OK after what happened with the RRF," Jim elaborated.

Gabby's face fell instantly. "I'm an idiot, Cat. You don't have to do this."

I shrugged. Now it actually came to the point I was unwilling to back out. "I'll be OK."

Gabby gave Jim a look and Jim vanished back up the stairs leaving us alone. 

"Cat," Gabby began, sitting down on a dirty step.

"Really Gabby, I'll be fine. The squad will be right behind me, right?" I could hear the tremble in my voice. 

I sat down next to him on the step, my knees suddenly feeling a bit weak.

"We'll be so close, we'll be lucky the Hunting Club don't smell our breath," said Gabby and he nudged my shoulder.

I smiled weakly. "I can do this."

"You shouldn't have to, though. I just didn't think to make the connection. You want to back out, I'll make up some kind of excuse about changing my mind or having a better plan."

I shook my head. "No, I might as well get it over with. Face your fears right?"

"Bullshit... probably."

I dropped my head to his shoulder, closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. I felt his arm snake around me and give me a squeeze. Then I sat up straight, shaking off the comfort. 

"No, I'll be fine. No time like the present."

I stood up and began resolutely heading down the stairs.

"Good luck, Cat!"

* * *

Fortunately I didn't have to leave the mall and wander around West Becktown, acting as bait. I was seated in the battered remains of a McDonald's concession drinking an over-priced and somewhat dubious pint of homebrew next to a large roaring fire when the Duke D'Oeuvre slipped silently into the seat opposite me and tipped his bowler in a polite fashion.

"Aren't you supposed to kill me?" I asked.

"You're not really a high enough prize," he replied. "Sorry to disappoint."

I shrugged. "So what do you want?"

"I'd like to put across our point of view."

"On the subject of the gloves?"

"Indeed yes, on the subject of the gloves."

I waved my hand generously. "Go on then."

The Duke smiled slightly at that and leaned back in his chair. "You realise that they are a dangerous piece of military research."

I gestured expansively around the ruins of Caiger Mall and the grubby survivors clustered around the booths and camp fires. "I think we're all aware of what happens when military research gets out of hand."

His mouth quirked into a small smile again. "Indeed. Your associates might want to think carefully, in that case, about handing the gloves back to them."

"We need the supplies," I said.

"That's a somewhat short term view, don't you think?"

I shrugged. "We don't have the luxury of the long view, not any more."

"Quite the opposite, I'd say. We can't die. If anyone has the luxury of the long view then it is us."

I shook my head. "If we don't maintain constant vigilance then we'll all just be dead. Walking dead, maybe, but still dead."

"You don't think that your reactionary fondness for the old way of life is one of the things holding Malton back?"

I ran my eyes over his neatly pressed suit, the bowler hat and the umbrella. "I notice you're not wandering around as a zombie. And your outfit doesn't exactly shout brave new world."

The Duke tapped the table with his finger. "You are letting appearances deceive you. I'm not hide-bound. I don't waste my energy trying to maintain a status quo that was doomed the moment the virus got out."

I snorted. "The big game hunt and survival of the fittest; that's what this glorious future of yours holds? Who's going to make your fancy suits and hats?"

"I don't pretend to have all the answers. Let us say I'm exploring the possibilities and I'm working with people who are trying to actually think about a way forward."

"The Philosophe Knights?" I let the contempt show in my voice.

"You shouldn't be so quick to condemn what you don't understand."

"You're also working with the Dead," I pointed out. "I don't get the impression they have a particularly philosophical approach to the brave new world."

"Needs must. I think it would be irresponsible to let those gloves get out."

"Why do you care? The military-industrial complex is part of the old order. I don't think those gloves will make much difference to whether it stands or falls. They are less of a game changer than zombieism was."

"That doesn't mean I have any fondness for them. I certainly don't see any reason to help them."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "So this is really about revenge."

There was a brief moment of surprise in his eyes and then he relaxed once more into a smile. "Well played, my dear, well played."

"We still need the supplies," I pointed out.

"Really," and his voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Really," I dead-panned. "More ammo, some fresh food, you'll need to offer us something pretty special if you want us to change our minds."

"What makes you think they will even deliver?" he asked. "They'll struggle to get anyone prepared to move goods into Malton."

I saw my opportunity to seed some information. "It's a helicopter drop, and we get to check the goods before handing over the gloves."

"They trust you?"

"They know we'd like to do this again. We have more to lose by double-crossing them, than they do by double-crossing us. Besides, the drop point is a nice high building and Dunell Hills is right by the wall so they'll be able to see any zombie hordes approaching the drop point."

I watched him closely but couldn't see any sign that he'd picked up on the information I'd just let out. I'd have to hope he had.

The Duke studied his fingernails in a bored fashion. "You realise we'll have to stop you."

"You'll have to try," I said levelly.

He smiled at that. "Well, until we meet again."

Then he rose and turned to vanish into the crowd. I watched him go as I finished my pint.


	8. Chapter 8

"Did they bite?" asked Gabby when I met up with the rest of Bravo again.

"I'm not sure, but I think so. The Duke upped and left pretty quickly as soon as he knew he was looking for a high building, large enough for a helicopter to land on, somewhere in Dunell Hills."

Hali nodded. "We got through to Brass. That end of things is all sorted."

"So we should head for Ostrehan Towers then," I concluded.

It was two days before the hand over was supposed to happen. We entered the Hills and settled ourselves into the Heal Museum. We kept a low profile but a barricaded building in Dunell Hills was sufficiently unusual that it was unlikely to go unremarked for long. Two days, we reckoned, would be enough time to get noticed.

Sure enough by mid-afternoon on the day of the drop, we had a mid-sized horde of zombies outside the museum. Not as large as the mega-hordes that had once besieged Caiger Mall, but then there were a lot fewer of us in the museum than there had ever been on the Caiger barricades.

"Time to move, I think," Jim muttered as the heavy wooden doors splintered. We exited onto the roof in time honoured fashion. Hali had the heavy case that had contained the gloves strapped to his back. Gabby took the running leap from the museum onto the platform roof at Dewfall Plaza Railway Station. His feet skidded and his arms flailed as the ice interfered with the landing, but he stayed upright. Jim and Sy followed more carefully.

At that moment three men appeared on the roof of Cotty PD. Long planks were lowered across the narrow gap to the museum. Hali instantly swung the bag off his shoulders and tossed it across to the railway station and Jim. Our adversaries crossed the planks quickly, but they slowed when they reached the snow and ice on the museum roof. Pedro and I fired at them as they came. Hali crossed to the station.

Out of the side of my eye, I saw Pedro fix a carabiner to something and then he threw himself over the side of the building. There was only one assailant left but I was alone on the museum roof. I turned and made the jump. My feet slipped on the sloping roof over the platform and I slithered down the slight incline, scrabbling frantically at the icy surface. At the last minute before I fell over the edge and onto the rusting railway tracks I caught on a ridge between the panels. Gingerly I pulled myself upright.

The others were a long way ahead of me. It looked like Jim, Sy and Gabby were heading for Godsland Street School and the free running lanes that would take them to Dury and beyond. Hali had paused at the edge of the long low station roof and was thoughtfully swinging a grappling hook, obviously preparing to make the leap across to Ostrehan Towers itself. I swerved in his direction just as a spray of bullets hit the roof at my feet. 

Hali got the rope across to the towers on the first throw, a gentle downward incline into a tangle of metal attached across a window for that purpose. 

"You go first," he muttered, "I'll secure it this end then follow you."

"Who has the case?" I asked.

"Jim hopefully. Quick now."

I slung a loop over the rope and allowed myself to slide down it towards the towers, bracing my feet in front of me as I arrived below the window. Long practice had made me an expert at this sort of travel and I rapidly transferred my weight to the window bars and then hauled myself inside.

There was a zombie in the room beyond. I pulled out my pistol. Three shots into the creature's head and it went down.

"We've got company down below," Hali remarked, scrambling through the window behind me.

"Up then?" I suggested.

"It isn't easy to get off this building."

"Head for the library on the other side?"

Hali nodded. We ducked out into the narrow stairwell that dominated the centre of the towers. The steady groaning of zombies floated up from below us somewhere. Behind us came the clatter of a second grappling hook. We were being pursued across from the railway station.

We crossed the landing into the apartment on the far side and dispatched a second zombie that was waiting in the empty entrance hall. Hali crouched in the window eyeing the distance to the library, while I hastily pulled a second rope and grappling hook from his backpack. Then we both had to flatten ourselves to the floor as a hail of bullets tore through the thin plasterboard of the apartment walls.

I pulled my backpack towards me. A shotgun was strapped to it. Hali was already attempting to return fire from where he lay flat on the floor in one corner of the room. I began to edge away from the centre of the floor where most of the bullets seemed to be landing. I struggled to disentangle my shotgun from the straps. I got the gun free and fired two shots through the wall, they tore large gaping holes in the plasterboard, but I couldn't spot any kind of a target beyond.

Two more shots echoed through the building and then everything fell quiet. 

"Hey guys! Don't shoot me, OK?" came Pedro's cheerful voice.

"You're clear!" I called back, standing up again with a sense of relief.

The door of the room opened and Pedro slipped in.

"Nick of time, mate," said Hali approvingly.

"Jim and Gabby are already up top. You guys want to join in the fun?" Pedro asked.

"Where's Sy?" Hali asked.

"He got hit. We abandoned him somewhere near Dury."

"We'll be sitting ducks on the roof," I pointed out.

Pedro just grinned maniacally. "That's assuming we get there. This place is swarming with zombies."

He wasn't wrong. Normally zombies are coming up from below in high buildings, but it was clear the Dead had packed out all levels of Ostrehan. At one point I leaned out over the banisters and could see a thick press of bodies up above us as well as down below.

"How are you doing for ammo?" I couldn't help asking.

"Fire axes soon," Pedro remarked.

I had a single pistol clip left and half a dozen shells. There was no way we were going to clear a route up to the top of the building.

Then there was the rumbling roar of an explosion from above us. I crouched down, hands over my head as lumps of concrete and iron railing, not to mention a few zombies, fell down the open space in the centre of the spiralling stair.

Jim must have picked a use for his last grenade.

"We won't be getting up that way," Hali commented.

"Time for some free climbing," Pedro said.

I hate free climbing. 

We ducked into the nearest apartment. We were now well above the level of the surrounding buildings, but survivors had been free running and free climbing around Malton for years now so it came as no surprise to find handholds chipped into the concrete sides, and even the odd piton. Pedro went first since he was the least likely of us to fall and take the others with him, then Hali and then me.

We weren't far from the top of the building, maybe five storeys, but two storeys above us the building narrowed and the apartments had large roof gardens. I concentrated on looking up at the metal balconies that surrounded them. All I had to do was reach the roof gardens. 

I was just below the final edge, my toes jammed onto the narrow ridge at the top of window, when I noticed that Pedro and Hali hadn't moved from the balcony rail on the roof garden above me. I wasn't sure what they were looking at, but the building was obviously full of zombies. I guessed they were facing something. I paused where I was in indecision. Even if I could have freed my pistol from my belt while clinging onto the side of a tower block, I very much doubted I could then get myself up onto the roof garden without dropping it or falling to my own death. Quite probably both.

"Just the two of you?" asked a voice.

I nearly did fall off the building at that point. I zoned out momentarily back to an old school house in Ridleybank that smelled of blood and rotting bodies. It made sense, I supposed, that the Hunting Club had called in the RRF as well the Dead, and where the RRF were you would find Lord Moloch.

Then I was back on the building, still clutching hold of pitted concrete with my feet braced on the top of a rotting window sill. I didn't give myself time to think but boosted myself up the final stretch to grab onto the railing of the roof garden. I tumbled over it in something of a disorganised heap, but as I rolled I managed to free the pistol and I came up shooting. There were two men on the rooftop. I shot Moloch first. A shotgun roared somewhere near me and the second man went down. I glanced at Pedro.

He winked back. "Disorganised, but effective. I don't think they were expecting a mad suicide charge."

"Hey! We're winning!" Gabby shouted down from the rooftop above us. He waved his arms, clearly skylined against the setting sun.

Hali sank his head into his hands and groaned. I wasn't sure where the shot came from, but it must have been behind us somewhere because Gabby tumbled backwards.

"Why is he in charge of us again?" Pedro asked.

"None of us were stupid enough to take the job."

"We'd better make a show of rushing to his defence," said Hali.

There was an intact fire escape leading from the roof gardens up to the top of the building. Before we started up it I paused to check on Moloch. I'd shot at him before but this was the first time I'd killed him. I looked forward to doing so again in the future.

"Know him?" asked Pedro curiously.

I nodded quickly. "No one important though, let's get going."

Pedro gave me an odd look but he didn't pursue the topic. We hurried up the fire escape towards the top of the building. When I stuck my head over the parapet, Jim was nowhere in sight. The Duke D'Oeuvre was standing over Gabby's body, clutching the glove case. Behind the Duke stood a fairly impressive number of others. Several wore the blank white face masks of the Philosophe Knights. I guessed the rest were the human wings of the Dead and the RRF, forged into an unlikely alliance in order to gain this prize.

"I wouldn't bother doing anything. You'll be dead before you get close to us," observed the Duke.

Pedro leaned back against the edge of the fire escape and folded his arms. "What now then?"

"Now," said the Duke with a flourish, "we take the gloves." He placed the case on the flat roof and flicked the catches.

The three of us turned instantly and started to run down the fire escape. The rolling explosion that took out the top of the building could probably be seen several miles away.

Hali checked his watch. "They should be making the actual pick up any minute now. I think we provided the necessary distraction."

"Assuming none of them noticed Steve wasn't with us."

* * *

They hadn't noticed Steve's absence, or if they had it had been too late to do anything coherent about it. We had radio contact pretty quickly which confirmed that all had gone well.

It took us two days to meet up with the rest of the DHPD again. We had to revive Sy and then get Jim and Gabby's bodies out of Ostrehan Towers which, given both the stairwell and most of the roof were destroyed, wasn't a trivial task. Eventually though we found ourselves back in the common room at Bunter Street Police Department eating fresh food and admiring some rather swizzy new guns.

"Semi-automatic," Pedro remarked approvingly.

"Better hope the Hunting club don't get hold of any," I remarked.

"I think they are more breech-loading rifle types," said Jim. "If they could get gunpowder they'd probably insist on that as well."

"Still, they may have had a point about handing over the gloves," I mused.

"I suspect it's irrelevant. I took a good look at those gloves. I'm not at all convinced they'd work on someone who wasn't infected," remarked Hali.

"And what if they have someone who was infected? There were rumours a few years ago that one of the Fortress got over the wall on some kind of hang-glider," I said.

"There are always rumours of people escaping. I've never known one check out," Hali retorted. "Anyway, I made sure they wouldn't get the gloves to work, even on zombies. At least they won't get them working without a fair bit of work rewiring them. As Gabby pointed out, if they wanted to put a lot of effort into the gloves they'd have worked from plans, or sent in the SAS. They wouldn't have asked us to fetch the things in return for a couple of crates of food and three dozen assault rifles."

I couldn't help pondering the Duke's words in Caiger Mall though, about the new order that had to arise from our little apocalypse. I chewed thoughtfully on an apple while the others teased Gabby about getting himself shot by a sniper.

"Hey! I was getting bored of being the distraction. We wanted them to get the case, didn't we? It worked, didn't it?" he complained.

Because part of the Duke's point had been that the way forward had to take the zombies into account. It had to acknowledge those who had no wish to be human and it had to face up to the reality that death was no longer the end.

"You just got carried away," Pedro laughed and tossed his apple core at Gabby.

"Did not. It was a tactical death."

And that was the point really, these days dying was just a tactic.


End file.
